GoJaC

I learned go while doing my masters degree in electronic engineering (digital signal processing, specifically). These days I waste too much time on my job, some (not enough) on sport, etc. to play much go. But I still enjoy the occasional game and teaching the basics to beginners.

I only started playing Go seriously at the end of February 2005, though I knew the rules and played two or three 9x9 games in previous years. I learned by playing games on DGS, KGS, and in "real life" on Thursday evenings at the Stellenbosch Go Club, South Africa. I am now in Switzerland though.

Reverse Rank history:

Suffered unstable KGS rank due to too little activity, but lost "?" on 13 October 2006 to have rank 5kyu (following KGS ranking system modification)

?doublecheck?: Won "most improved 10kyu to 19kyu", September 2005 to September 2006 - 16kyu to 7kyu. Note that from April to September (6 months of the 12) I hadn't improved my rank, it was all in the first six months. Since the Cape Town Open, I've not been playing go a lot.

Game count (KGS games against SAGC members counted twice, since they're usually also logged at the Stellenbosch club):

30 August 2005: ~250 games?, 15k: 108 KGS games (includes a few on smaller boards). 55 games logged at the Stellenbosch club (some are now counted twice, as they were KGS or DGS games). 39 "finished" games on DGS (about three timed out, ten were on smaller boards), 14 still running. About 2? games on IGS. Probably >20 19x19 games against GnuGo. Less than 10 other (unlogged) games. (SAGC 15k, DGS 14k, KGS 16k)

16 October 2005: Another 40 games, 12k: another 10 KGS games, 8 DGS games. 26 games logged at Stellenbosch Club, of which 4 were DGS or KGS.

14 November 2005: Another 29 games (total ~320?), just got promoted to 10k: another 2 KGS games, 7 on DGS and 20 games logged at Stellenbosch Club.

Nick origin: the "GoJaC" nick originated 1996, when I was 14. It was my original gaming nick, constructed from the end of my first name and the beginning of my second name (Jacobus). It is therefore pure coincidence that it starts with "Go".

Contact Me

Feel free to leave me a message below. If you need to contact me, you can also consider email or IM (Jabber or Google Talk)..

For people wanting to get in touch through email or IM, here is a casual-reading-or-spambot-proof description of my contact details: my username for Google Talk, Google Mail and jabber.org consists of my first name and the first characters of each of the words of my surname. A total of 7 characters thus.